PCGS The Standard for the Rare Coin Industry

The Wind River Collection

About this set: The coins of New Orleans represent a city that is rich in history and critical to the westward expansion of the United States. However, collecting coins from the New Orleans mint was not really of much interest to me because they seemed so common when I was growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. Nearly twenty years ago while trying to complete a US type set, I reached a budgetary impasse where I only needed the most expensive issues such as the chain cent, the draped bust small eagle quarter and half dollar, and several of the early gold type coins. If I added these types to my collection, the expense of buying them would probably have been compounded by the cost of a divorce! It occurred to me to add the branch mints to my collection. Little did I know that this would completely change my collecting interests. I realized that many of the New Orleans issues were quite rare even though they were not very expensive at the time. Most issues before the Civil War had been placed into circulation and stayed there. Even AU coins for many dates were very hard to find even though many were not particularly expensive. Finding the coins became the challenge instead of finding the money to buy them. I expect Collecting New Orleans coins to remain my main interest for a long time to come!